“You’re stupid,” the voice said conversationally, “but not that stupid. So spare me the bullshit.

  “Here’s the deal—the only deal you’re gonna get. Open the door, let our people in, and collect one thousand credits.

  “Go home, tell the Jones bitch that you buried the old man, and let her pay you again. Sweet, huh? Think about it: Our offer is simple, profitable, and good for your long-term health.”

  This guy had a way with words, I’ll give him that, but there was one little problem: I don’t have much, but I do have my integrity (well, most of it), and my word is my bond. When I guard a body it stays guarded—even when it’s stiff as a board.

  “Sounds tempting,” I lied, using the light generated by the sparks to complete my preparations, “but how do I know you’ll keep your word?”

  “Because we’re really nice guys,” the voice said sweetly, “who go to church every week, give to the poor, and help old ladies onto escalators.”

  The lock gave, the door slid sideways, and they entered shooting. The dead body took some of the punishment, and slugs ricocheted off the walls and thumped into coffins.

  I opened up with the android’s handguns and watched the shooters stagger under the impact of the 9mm slugs and backpedal into the night.

  My ears continued to ring from the gunfire—but there was a moment of relative silence. The train went clickety-clack, boots shuffled above, and somebody burped. They didn’t bother to excuse themselves. The voice was disappointed.

  “Damn, Maxon, what’s with you anyway?”

  “What do you want him for?” I countered. “Something for the trophy room? There must be serious money involved.”

  The voice was relieved—as if a mystery had been solved. “Okay, here’s the deal. The geezer came back to life once—what if he does it again? What if the tech heads, our tech heads, can help him do it? There’s all sorts of stuff locked up in that head, things that would help our company compete, and boost the bottom line. Get it?”

  “Got it,” I replied. “Now get the hell off my train.”

  The voice was angry now, as if betrayed. “You’re gonna be sorry, Maxon, real sorry.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “I think I already am.”

  I heard footsteps after that . . . followed by peace and quiet.

  I apologized to the much perforated corpse, managed to box her up, and went back to my couch.

  The train slowed about twenty minutes later, stopped, and started again, raising the distinct possibility that the opposition had gotten off, or that they wanted me to think they had gotten off, or that the engineer had taken a pee. Who the hell knew?

  Hours passed, my eyelids grew heavy, and my head started to nod. I didn’t go to sleep though, or didn’t think I had, until the light hit my face and a hand touched my shoulder.

  I blinked rapidly, peered into my own flashlight, and damned near shit my pants. The door remained open and there was daylight outside. Not much—but enough.

  Jerimiah Jones looked as good as any corpse can. The five-thousand-credit suit really was wrinkle resistant. Even his shoes were shined. My hand sought the .38 and I was relieved to find that it was there. The dead man frowned. “Who are you? And where am I?”

  “Max Maxon,” I replied truthfully. “You’re on the death train . . . bound for North Dakota.”

  “The death train?” He looked surprised, angry, and sad, all within the space of a few moments. His knees seemed to give way—and he sat on a coffin. The light took a tour of the ceiling. “I died? Again?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I’m afraid so.”

  I saw acceptance in his eyes followed by sudden suspicion. “You know who I am. . . . Why?”

  I shrugged. “Your daughter hired me as an escort.”

  He appeared pleased, thought better of it, and frowned.

  His eyes went to the .38. “She hired you to kill me!”

  I winced. Jones was pretty sharp for a dead guy.

  “No,” I answered cautiously, “not exactly. You were dead—and she wanted you to stay that way.”

  “So,” he said, sitting up straight and pushing his chest out. “Go ahead—kill me.”

  And there it was—the reality of what I had been hired to do. It would be easy. Pump a couple of slugs into the old geezer, dump the body back in its box, and finish the journey.

  Only trouble was that I couldn’t do it. Not then . . . not ever. I returned the gun to its holster. “I should, I said I would, but I can’t. You have nothing to fear from me.”

  The old man fixed me with a stare, nodded slowly, and let the air out. It didn’t sound right—like there was something wrong with his lungs.

  “Cleo never was a very good judge of character—which explains those husbands. She thinks the bad ones are good and the good ones are bad. My fault, I suppose.”

  It was a backhanded compliment of sorts, at least I thought it was, so I smiled.

  The train took a curve, the coffins creaked, and three empty shell casings clattered across the floor. Jones tracked them with the light, brought it up, and surveyed the damage. There were plenty of bullet holes, coffins that had started to leak, and bright spots on the walls. “What happened here?”

  I didn’t see any reason not to, so I told Jones about the voice, the offer, and the ensuing gun battle. He laughed, started to cough, and wiped phlegm from his lips.

  “Maybe Cleo’s a better judge of character than I thought! There are two or three companies that would love to take a tour of my head. Now they won’t get the chance—thanks to you.”

  The old man’s left hand started to jerk spasmodically so he grabbed it with his right. He looked embarrassed and I felt sorry for him.

  “So,” I said, hoping to give him some cover, “what now?”

  Jones looked up from the hand. His eyes were dark and serious. “Let me tell you something about death, Max. . . . It teaches you about what’s important. It isn’t money, it isn’t power, and it isn’t sex. . . . It’s people. Helping them, supporting them, making life better for them.

  “That’s why I started work on my will. . . . I want to change it . . . to give my money to charity. Help me, Max, help me make it back, and I’ll pay your fee.”

  I gave the proposition some thought. Not a lot of thought, because I’d done myself out of a job and needed the money.

  Besides, I liked Jones and here was a chance to guard a live body for a change. A definite step up in the world.

  We shook on the deal. His hand felt firm yet fragile . . . as if his bones were cinnamon sticks. The clock was ticking. He knew it and I knew it. The train swayed—and the miles rolled away.

  It was cold by the time the train arrived in North Dakota, damned cold, and snowflakes had started to fly. They came in at a slant, little packets of misery, propelled by the wind.

  My jacket was at least two sizes too big for Jones, and both of us shivered as we jumped to hard frozen ground and walked parallel to the train.

  I’ve been off-planet, and fought in some pretty strange places, but none more bizarre than this. The Interment Center, as it was euphemistically named, crouched on top of a hill where it had been dug in, like a fortress against the elements.

  The dead people were segregated in death just as they had been in life. Expensive monuments, memorials, and headstones marked the graves of those who had money, while further out, nearly lost in the snow, I could see the first rows of aluminum markers, the kind I would have, stretching into the distance.

  Hundreds, thousands, millions of rectangles, each marking a life lived, and a death gone by.

  “There’s a visitors’ center,” Jones said, hunching his shoulders against the wind. “It’s warm inside and there’s a kiosk.”

  I damned near asked how he knew, remembered the answer, and kept my mouth shut.

  The snow peppered our faces, crunched under our shoes, and found its way into our clothes. We were glad to go inside. It was warm . . . and we left tracks on the otherwise pristine floor.

  The visitors’ center was something to see. Plenty of taxpayer credits had been spent on interactive dioramas, a holo about the history of death, and a heat-activated narration.

  “Welcome on behalf of the Center, and the Center’s staff,” the voice intoned. “We hope you will enjoy your time with us and stand ready to assist in any way that we can.”

  “Then shut the hell up,” Jones growled, as he limped toward the com kiosk.

  The voice heard, processed the words, and did what it was told.

  I don’t know what Jones did in that kiosk, or how he did it, but an unmarked transport arrived about two hours later. It circled the area, dropped through the snow, and settled on the landing pad. Snow started to melt.

  “I hired a freelancer,” Jones explained as we headed for the ship. “A company transport would bring all sorts of trouble down on our heads.”

  “Higo porla tog.”

  If the industrialist noticed he gave no sign of it. Jones coughed, then stumbled and managed to catch himself. I took his arm. He accepted my help.

  The flight back to civilization took less than three hours. I waited till the urboplex was visible through the windscreen before I went forward, shoved the .38 into the pilot’s ear, and gave my instructions. “Switch to the manual controls and pull the head jack.”

  She pulled the jack out of her temple, kept her hands where I could see them, and kept her cool. Ex-military? Maybe—not that it mattered. The voice was calm. “Don’t tell me . . . let me guess: a different landing spot?”

  I nodded. Just because Jones hired a transport that belonged to someone else didn’t mean we were safe, Zf the pilot was on the take, if we’d been made, then the last-minute change could throw them off.

  After all, assuming they weren’t one and the same, there was “the voice” plus the nicely dressed man to be concerned about.

  “Yeah. Put her down at Satellite Port number twelve.”

  “It’s a him,” the pilot corrected me, “but no hard feelings.”

  I braced myself as the transport banked to starboard. Jones appeared at my elbow, eyed the handgun, and raised an eyebrow. His breath was bad—like something was wrong deep inside. “What’s going on?”

  “A last-minute change,” I replied. “In case they were waiting for us.”

  The industrialist looked thoughtful, shrugged, and limped back to his seat. A client who trusted me! Life was (momentarily) good.

  The landing was uneventful—which is the way I like them. The ship creaked as it settled onto the skids, Jones affixed his thumbprint to an invoice, and I wondered if dead people could charge things.

  This one not only could, but did, and we were on our way.

  The feeling that something was wrong, very wrong, began the moment that I started to descend the ramp. The port was not only big, it was huge, which meant hundreds of pads, ships coming and going, robots trundling back and forth, and lots of activity.

  So why was this particular platform nearly deserted? Where was the ground crew? Maintenance droids? Baggage handlers? Hiding, that’s where—which meant we should too.

  I drew the .38, backed up the ramp, and hollered to Jones. “It’s a trap! Get back in the ship!”

  The nicely dressed man was not so nicely dressed. The blue coverall was too small and too clean. He stepped out from behind a ground tug, brought the pistol up into a two-handed stance, and triggered two shots.

  My head jerked as the second creased my skull plate. I fired in return, saw one of his legs buckle, and knew I was low.

  The ramp boosted me up into the cabin, sealed itself to the hull, and became one with the floor. The ship forced its way off the pod, skimmed a maintenance facility, and fought for altitude.

  I staggered into the cockpit and gestured with the gun. “You could have sealed us outside. Thanks.”

  The pilot grinned. “No prob, Bob. They were shooting at Homer. Nobody shoots at Homer and gets away with it.”

  “Homer?”

  The pilot patted the side of her seat. “Yeah, this is Homer, and he’s mine. So, where to?”

  I frowned, turned toward the cabin, and saw Jones coughing his lungs out. His body, strong though it had been, was gradually coming apart. There wasn’t much time. Our plans would have to accommodate that fact.

  “Check . . . see whether Jones Inc. has a building of its own . . . and whether the company put a pad on the roof.”

  The pilot must have used her implant because there was nothing but silence. The answer came thirty seconds later when she glanced in my direction. “That’s a roger. . . . They have a building with a pad on top. Shall I head in that direction?”

  “Not yet,” I answered grimly. “There’s something I need to check on. Fly in circles or something. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Jones had recovered by the time I reentered the cabin and used a tissue to wipe blood off his lips. “Thanks, Max. You saved my bacon. Again. What now?”

  “We’re going to land on your office building, find the lawyers, and change that will.”

  There was gratitude in his eyes. “That’s all I ask, Max. You get me there, I’ll handle the rest.”

  I nodded. “First things first. Take off your clothes.”

  Jones gave me a very strange look. I shook my head. “No, nothing like that. It wasn’t the pilot . . . so how did they know?”

  A sudden look of understanding appeared on his face. “My clothes . . . some sort of tracer.”

  “Preciseamundo,” I replied. “A backup in case you got away from me. Let’s find the little bastard.”

  It took the better part of five minutes to examine the executive’s clothing, come up empty, and go to work on his no longer shiny shoes. The bug was there alright, hidden in his right heel, broadcasting our position.

  I used the point of my pocketknife to pry the device out of its hole and beat on it with the butt of my gun.

  Once that was accomplished we swung south, dropped into the lowest layer of traffic, and made our approach. The building was sheathed in black glass and, with the exception of a small rectangular structure, had a perfectly flat roof.

  An executive-style flitter lifted off the pad, turned on its axis, and headed east.

  The pilot gave the other aircraft a moment to get clear and put Homer on the roof. I paused for a moment, took a certain amount of comfort from the fact that nobody shot at us, and spoke to the pilot. “We’ll give it a try.”

  She nodded. “I’ll stay till you get inside.”

  I took one last look into her steady gray eyes and knew I was missing something. Something I would fantasize about later on. If there was a later on. “What’s your name?”

  “Clare.”

  “Thanks, Clare.”

  You’re welcome, Max.”

  I took the old man’s arm and helped him down the ramp. It took what seemed like forever to make it across the roof to the small but well-appointed waiting room. A nicely dressed young woman turned, took a look at Jones, and went pale. “Grandpa? Is that you?”

  I don’t know where he found the strength, but Jones drew himself up, and stood unassisted. “Why yes, dear, it is. Back from the grave again. Margaret, this is Max Maxon. . . . Max, this is Margaret, one of the grandchildren for whom I still have some hope.”

  I nodded. “Nice to meet you.”

  The woman said, “Likewise,” but her eyes were on Jones. He winked. “Come on, hon, you can walk me to legal.”

  But a tone sounded before Margaret could reply, a lift surfaced, and doors whirred open. The security types came out shooting.

  Margaret raised her hands, started to say something, and spun as a bullet turned her around.

  I worked from right to left, hitting each shooter with two slugs, dropping them as fast as I could.

  The third might have nailed me, would have nailed me, except for Margaret. She pulled a two-shot purse gun, put both bullets into the last security agent, and watched her fold. Bright red blood soaked the left side of her one-thousand-credit business suit. “I’m sorry, Grandpa, what we did was wrong.”

  The old man shuffled over, offered his hand, and helped Margaret to her feet. “Don’t worry about it, sweetie. We all make mistakes. Let’s get some pressure on that wound and get downstairs. I’ve got a will to sign.”

  It was easy after that. We got in the lift, dropped to the twenty-seventh floor, and cruised through legal. Plenty of people saw us, knew something strange was going down, and didn’t lift a finger to interfere. And why should they? The family kept the real goodies for themselves—and fed the troops little more than scraps.

  We found a couple of lawyers, scared the crap out of them, and demanded the will.

  Cleopatra arrived a few minutes later, called me every name in the book, and attempted to murder her father. Her pupils were dilated, spittle flew from her lips, and the words ripped like claws. “Die, you miserable old bastard! Die!”

  But Jones didn’t die. Not then anyway. He just shook his head sadly, placed his thumbprint on the originals, took one of them, and left. Margaret and I followed.

  The old man passed away two days later . . . with his granddaughter at his side. I know because it was on the news and my voice mail:

  “Max . . . Jerimiah here. . . . I’ll be dead by the time you receive this, really dead, and up to my ass in hot lava.

  “There’s hope for you, though . . . which is why I didn’t leave you a whole lot of money. The blasted stuff is the root of all evil, you know . . . and you have plenty of problems already.

  “What’s the deal with the gibberish anyway? You should see a doctor or something.

  “I did dump a couple of thousand credits into your account, however . . . since there’s damned little chance that Cleo will pay your bill.

  “Take care, Max . . . and good luck. You sure as hell deserve it.” (Click.)

  For the further adventures of Max Maxon, read

  Bodyguard, also by William C. Dietz, from Ace Sci-

  ence Fiction.

  A Family Affair

  Sublevel 38 of the Sea Tac Residential-Industrial Urboplex is a sprawling maze of corridors, passageways and tunnels, some of which are part of the original design and many of which are not. Maybe that’s why some of the walls sweat, bulge, and eventually give away.